Their colorful history is familiar to many, but Tarnoff breathes fresh life into his narrative with vivid details from the archives at UC's Bancroft Library, giving us a rich portrait of a lost world overflowing with new wealth and new talent. They wrote poems and stories, and relished the freedom of their isolation on the Pacific Coast while the battles raged back East. And the city where he received some of his earliest on-the-job training was San Francisco.Īs Ben Tarnoff argues in "The Bohemians," his stylish and fast-paced literary history, the city's "greatest gift to Twain was its Bohemia." Led by witty Bret Harte, this little circle of unconventional writers and intellectuals turned San Francisco into a cultural haven during the Civil War. "I never write 'metropolis' for seven cents," Mark Twain said, "because I can get the same money for 'city.' " Ever the businessman, Twain never forgot that writing was a trade as well as an art. By Ben Tarnoff (The Penguin Press 319 pages $27.95)
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